CHAPTER ONE

 

Ben Latimer groaned as he lifted his body slowly from the armchair. He was old; old and decrepit; filled with the ancient ills of a human frame long ill-used and over-indulged. His swollen legs throbbed with gout; his heart thumped in his chest; and, deep inside his gut he felt a savage stab of agony from SOMETHING he knew was eating away the last flickers of his life. Yet, he did not look pathetic; it would have been difficult for anyone, no matter how kindly disposed, to have felt pity for that ravaged face, lined with the striations of cruelty and debauchery.

A black, hairy thing came snuffling toward him from the shadows and stood beside him, looking like the Familiar of a wizard.

Latimer spoke to the ape. "Check the straps carefully. She must not move now. It would be tragic - for me and, for you!"

The ape would have been taller than the man if it had been upright. But it was bowed so that the knuckles of the fingers at the ends of the long arms almost rested on the ground as it stood. It glanced at its Master sidelong, so that he could see the red-lined whites of its eyes glinting evilly. It snuffled again and shambled forwards.

Strapped to the wall, with her legs and arms wide-spread, was a tall, lovely girl about twenty eight years old. Her long black hair hung down loose over her shoulders, framing her dead-white face with its dark brown eyes like pools of fear and her scarlet mouth, the lips tightly compressed against the scream of fear and horror that mounted within her. Her large breasts, full and pert, stood out from her chest, not sagging, so that the nipples showed pale brown and pink against her white skin. Her waist was naturally slender, so that her hips and buttocks swelled out below, as if to emphasize her seductive femininity. At the point where her long, slender legs joined her body, her sex was covered ... just covered ... by a star shaped metal star made of silvery metal that shone and twinkled in the harsh light of the spot that was trained on her, leaving the rest of the room in semi-darkness. There was no sign of any belt or other fastening to the cache-sexe. A long slender rod of springy metal had been inserted into her rectum, so far that she had felt it must come out of her mouth if it had been six inches longer! The outward end of the rod was connected by a metal bar to another spring-rod inserted into her vagina. On the underbar was fitted the star that covered her sex.

The ape put out a black hairy hand, with long, yellow nails, and touched the girl's skin tentatively. For an instant a finger rested on the velvet breasts, and the girl screamed. Latimer turned from what he was doing.

"None of that!" he cried. "None of that, or I'll have a red-hot iron to you! Do as I told you!"

The great beast, which could have crushed the ancient, feeble and evil man with one hand, flinched as though it had been struck a heavy blow. It snuffled again, and began to check carefully each of the many black straps that held the girl motionless against the wall. The band around the forehead that held the head was okay. He checked the wide neck-strap and found that it would be drawn in another hole without choking the girl. His huge fingers, surprisingly skilful, did what was necessary. The girl held her breath as the rank odour of the animal rose to her nostrils.

One by one the ape checked the straps around arms and legs and, the wide one that constrained that delicate waist. Almost reluctantly he stood back, but not before he had once more ventured to touch the girl's cheek with one finger, in what seemed almost like a tender, kindly gesture.

"Get back to your corner!" snarled Latimer, and the huge animal cringed back into a dark corner of the room. Gasping with the effort; feeling for a moment a terrible panic fear lest he had left everything a few minutes too late, Latimer made his painful way to where the girl was fastened. In his hand he had a second star, matching the one covering her sex. With great pains, gasping for breath, stopping every few seconds to press a bony hand deep into his side to try to alleviate the pain that tore him, he moved to her side.

"Hell!" he gasped. "I must hurry, or I'll be too late!" He clipped the star to the black band around the girl's forehead, positioned it carefully, then staggered back to his chair. He sat there a minute or two, gasping for breath and groaning. Then he wiped his damp forehead with a handkerchief and relaxed. "It's better when I'm sitting down," he said. "I'll make it!" With a great effort of will he took a black rubber strap, carrying a third star, and bound it around his own forehead. Then he settled himself back in the chair, resting his head on a shaped cushion that held it firmly. Placing one hand on the chair-arm, he moved the other to a small grey panel at his side, hesitated for a moment, then pulled a switch. The room became as dark as the grave. A moment later a blinding pencil of vivid white light stabbed through the darkness. It concentrated on the star fixed on the girl's forehead, was reflected back to hit, precisely, the star on the old man's forehead. From there it was again reflected to the shining star held firmly over the girl's sex.

The narrow concentrated shaft of light, bright enough to blind if observed direct into the eye, pulsed rapidly, seemed to be moving, carrying a message of its own. Gradually it changed from blinding white to yellow, to orange, to red, to green and then at last to purple, darkening into violet and at last ultra-violet, a light that could hardly be seen, but in a strange way, felt. Minute by minute the pencil of light changed colour, so that at one time the room was glaring in the diamond whiteness of it and, at another it was dim-lit, filled with menacing shadows.

The old man lay still in his chair, not moving, hardly breathing. The girl stood motionless against the wall, her breath coming fast as fear began to fill her. She did not know what she was afraid of! When, hours ago, the black ape had begun to strap her naked to the wall; and after that when his bony hands cold and shaking, the horrible old man had inserted the rods deep into her intimate flesh she had struggled and screamed. But it was useless for her to struggle in the grasp of that powerful animal, which had yet seemed oddly gently and almost apologetic in its attitude. As gently as possible, it had strapped her to the wall, tightening the rubber straps one after the other, systematically, working in a way that no animal she had ever known would have been able to do. And when he had done his work, she could scream as much as she wanted to, but she could no longer struggle.

At first she had fear some kind of sexual assault. That ghastly ancient man could not, surely, be about to violate her? What could he do? What pleasure at his age and, in his condition, could he hope for? Not, surely, to let the animal ... Her mind refused to accept even the possibility of that horror. And then he had fitted the metal star into her sex and she had realised that at least for the present, there was no apparent sexual motive. But what? Torture? But how? There was no obvious way in which she could be tortured.

For half a minute or so, some two hours ago, the old man had switched on the mysterious light-beam; had sat down and got up again repeatedly until he had at last to sink into his chair, gasping and wheezing. He had directed the beam and had seemed to focus it. For a few seconds when he was satisfied and before he had switched the beam off, Sara had felt almost as though her very soul were being drawn out of her, into limbo.

For almost two hours since, Latimer had been checking and counter-checking his equipment, almost as though he were afraid of it. Then the ape had tightened the straps again to make her absolutely motionless. And now the weird light was pulsing, beating, seeming, through the two metal stars to be penetrating, not merely into her body, but into the fibres of her brain, drawing from each separate cell all the knowledge and experience she had ever acquired - and replacing it with such strange, terrible, unimaginable images and thoughts...

There was no sound but a faint crackling of electric sparks leaping across terminals; no physical sensation except the smell of ozone, strong in the air. Sara felt as though her mind, her very personality was being drained from her, like water being pumped from a tank, until at last she was an empty nothingness, a mere beautiful form of warm flesh, blood and bones; no more. Her eyes closed, the lids falling and the long dark lashes rested on her cheeks. She seemed not to be breathing; as though indeed the life had gone out of her.